A Fremont attorney and former Obama administration trade official, Khanna is setting up what's likely to be a key general-election campaign theme, hoping voters in this Silicon Valley district -- where dynamism is a prized virtue -- will see Honda as an ineffectual representative in an increasingly dysfunctional Congress.

Khanna -- who hopes to close the point gap by attracting more Republican and independent votes -- is casting one part of Honda's record in the worst possible light, saying that he has the "worst attendance record of any California Democrat who came to Congress when he did."

Ro Khanna, Mike Honda (ANDA CHU)

But that simply means he's the worst of three: Susan Davis, D-San Diego, and Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, also went to Congress in 2001.

Compared to California's 53-member House delegation, Honda has the 15th-worst record, with 12 Democrats and two Republicans having missed higher percentages of votes during their time in office. Nor is Honda the Bay Area's worst -- Jackie Speier, George Miller and Nancy Pelosi all have higher missed-vote rates. Still, Honda's 4.8 percent rate is well above the 2.5 percent median for all House members.

The Dem-on-Dem battle in the only Asian-majority district outside Hawaii is among the nation's most-watched House races. Just months ago, the well-funded Khanna, a darling of the tech community, might've been considered the odds-on favorite. But Honda now has more campaign money banked, plus the name recognition and bully-pulpit advantages of seven terms in office.

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This new attack both sharpens Khanna's pre-primary theme that Honda isn't aggressive enough to represent the district's needs, and plays upon voters' frustration with Congress: Only 15 percent of Americans approve of its job performance, Gallup found in early July.

Khanna launched his absenteeism attack after Honda missed four votes July 22. Honda, interviewed a day later as he waited to greet President Barack Obama in Los Altos Hills, said he was in the Bay Area to be with his daughter while she prepared for spinal surgery. He missed 22 votes on bills or procedural matters that week.

How many missed votes is too many?

That's for candidates to argue and for voters to decide, said Joshua Clinton, a Vanderbilt University professor who specializes in congressional campaigns and the use and misuse of statistics in politics.

"It has the potential to have legs," Clinton said. "It's something that's easy for constituents to hang onto."

He said incumbents argue there can be more important things to do -- committee meetings and activities, meetings with constituents or businesses in the district, or family matters. And House Democrats' minority status might make it easier to argue that some votes aren't vital, he added.

"It comes down to whom the voters find more credible ... and how they think Honda has been doing over the past couple of years," Clinton said.

Tyler Law, Khanna's spokesman, said Honda "after 14 years has only managed to pass one bill, to name a post office," while taking more junkets than his three congressional neighbors -- Anna Eshoo, Zoe Lofgren and Eric Swalwell -- combined. Those included trips to Turkey in 2013 and South Korea in 2009 and 2012.

Now Honda has no town-hall meetings scheduled over the five-week summer recess that began Friday, Law said. "Voters deserve to hear him defend his record so they can decide if he's still up to the job."

The Honda campaign hasn't revealed any fall themes yet. But spokesman Vivek Kembaiyan said Khanna has been "making attacks like this on Congressman Honda for a year now -- and it's clear that he is unable to gain any traction."

Honda's record should be judged by "the results he's delivered for his constituents, from $900 million for the BART extension to San Jose, to millions for our veterans, to nearly a million in funding for local hospitals to upgrade their mammography and ultrasound services," he said.

Khanna also has taken Honda to task for accepting "all-expenses-paid vacations sponsored by special interest groups" -- 52 trips in all, ranking him 16th among current House members, fourth among California's delegation and third among Bay Area members.

Kembaiyan replied that Honda's district is known for global innovation and ethnic diversity. "By traveling, he is able to learn firsthand about the countries and cultures that are important to his constituents -- and help ensure that Silicon Valley maintains its global dominance in technology."